Moemon Ranger: Summer
by Hao 34
Summary: In the beautiful Oblivia Region, a Moemon Ranger named Summer has been assigned a dangerous mission: she has to defeat a dangerous group of poachers.  But the twist from the original Ranger game is that the pokemon are just like people!
1. Chapter 1

This story follows the plot line of Pokemon Ranger Guardian signs, but the

difference is that the pokemon are just like people, and are called

Moemon. The world is the same as Aoshi's Moemon Adventure, so

be sure to check that one out too! (And please comment, this is my first fanfic.)

Moemon Ranger: Summer

Chapter 1- La Inicia

Soaring high over the beautiful Oblivia region, in the rich cobalt sky, over a layer of fluffy stratus clouds was a refreshing thing to be doing, especially for Summer, a fairly experienced Moemon ranger. She was flying on a Starapter next to her partner Ben, a close friend of hers. It was the kind of day where things were so nice out that people become oblivious of their surroundings. Which was why Summer was too dazed to notice that two shady looking figures flying on what seemed like flying saucers were chasing a panicked blue Moemon through the heavens.

The pair fired a number of green energy blasts at the Moemon, but she gracefully evaded them, spiraling and ducking with ease.

"Come on, give up already!" cried one of the stalkers, frustrated with his failure. The sound of that chase woke Summer up from her daydream and shot through the clouds, catching up to the suspicious duo.

"Red goggles, yellow ascot, you must be… Holy shit, it's a hippie throwback let's get the hell out of here!" he screamed in terror.

The other Moemon hunter had an IQ over 75 and realized that Summer was a ranger. The pursuer skillfully took out a chrome gauntlet on her right arm and pointed it at a young Pidgey that was flying in a small flock. Rings of a vicious, sinful energy shot out at the Pidgey, overtaking her will and placing her under the control of the hunter.

"Pidgey, attack the Ranger!" she cried. The petrified Moemon flew up near Summer and started spinning whirlwinds towards her styler. Summer instinctively avoided the blasts of air and shot out a dark blue line of energy around the Pidgey, encircling her in a barrage of kind feelings, cancelling out the effects of the gauntlet the woman used on the Moemon prior.

Summer let the distraught Pidgey leave, and while the two captors were preoccupied watching the conflict, the blue Moemon picked up speed and shot off into the clouds.

"Look at what you've done! Not only did you capture our Pidgey, but our target got away too!" the male hunter exclaimed, purple with anger.

"How can you pull off a midair capture like that?" He cried as he lost sight of his initial target.

"Oblivia is plenty peaceful without your interference! I'll show you how we dispose of a ranger around these parts!" exclaimed the female poacher, wildly.

"We use plasma cannons!"

The duo launched a series of circular energy blasts at Summer and her Starapter, almost all of them missing the target.

But they quickly ran out of ammo, and were on the verge of resorting to ramming the unarmed ranger when the cry of another Starapter was heard, piercing through the hum of the flying Saucers and the frantic yells of the poachers.

"Are you sure you want to do that? Now you have to deal with two rangers!" Ben said, coming up from behind Summer and interrupting the incoming attack.

The two hunters were just about to retreat when someone exclaimed,

"There is one more on your side!" A tall man on a hovering device flew up through the clouds in front of the hunters. He wore a red shirt with baggy brown pants and had blond hair with a red highlight on a spike.

"These two are Moemon Rangers and they're giving us trouble in our mission…" said one of the hunters to this man.

"I have never seen flying rangers before, but I find it ridiculous to be wearing red goggles and a yellow scarf up in these skies. The 60's are long over. Luckily, I have just the method for annihilating brats like you." he said.

"You're the one that's ridiculous!" said Ben. "You and your team can't even handle a couple of "brats"!"

"I have the perfect consequence for children like you that mouth off. Skydiving; with no parachute!" The man said, laughing at his infantile sense of humor.

He shot from his hovercraft a flurry of huge energy spheres at a close range, knocking Summer out of the air in a flaming explosion. She dropped down beneath the cloud layer, and Ben completely lost sight of her. The bursts of energy weren't meant for her, but she got in the way at the last second to spare him.

Summer crashed into the ocean and luckily didn't suffer any bone breaking injuries. But as she sank down into the deep waters, she heard a faint call…

"URGENT! REATTACH THE CAPTURE STYLER! THE CAPTURE STYLER HAS COME OFF! URGENT! REATTACH THE CAPTURE S-STYLER… THE CAP-P-PTURE STYLER… HHA-S-SS…


	2. Chapter 2

Here's chapter 2! A little later than I hoped (because of finals) but still here nonetheless. Onward!

Espeon of Shadows: Thanks for the complements!

Chapter 2: En Negro (Black Out)

Summer awoke to find herself on the ocean floor, on a circular stone tablet about 10 feet diameter, surrounded by a murky blackness. The only source of light was a dim, yellow glow belonging to a young, cute Moemon with blue hair and a tight blue swimsuit on. The light was coming from an antenna on her head.

_She's a Lanturn, _thought Summer. _That's cute haha… Well I gotta get out of here,_ she thought, as she tried to swim away. But she was stopped by the fact that her shirt was caught by a boulder on the tablet. The Lanturn swam closer to her.

"Master…" she faintly whispered, as she reached her hand out languidly to Summer's body. Her face took on a light pink hue as she quickly pulled the ranger's mask off and kissed her. Her tongue slipped into Summer's mouth fervently and she started to squeeze her B cup breasts.

_Holy shit holy shit holy shit get this girl off me!_ Summer's mind screamed as the Lanturn groped her stiff nipples (they showed through her soaked top). She frantically attempted to pull off but the girl simply straddled her and reached down to her aroused rosebud, lightly rubbing it.

"Nooooo!" screamed Summer as she woke up from her dream.

She was still in the ocean but she was floating there alone, with her capture Styler nowhere to be found.

_Wait, I have to get it now! This sucks! _She thought to herself while she swam hurriedly down an immense trench where she suspected her styler had fallen. As she went down, a small Moemon caught her eye a few yards down. She wore a blue and orange dress with fins for sleeves, and she had short blue hair. A Wailmer. And in her mouth was Summer's capture styler!

She tried to inch closer to the Moemon, but the Wailmer bolted as soon as she got any closer than around 5 yards. Summer gave chase, and with a few short bursts of speed, she retrieved her elusive Styler.

She stopped on the ocean floor, standing on a circular slab of rock just like the one in her dream. But before she got the opportunity to really think about it, her styler screeched, " DANGER! DANGER! LARGE OBJECT APPROACHING!" The sea shook, and a vast, metal ship barreled towards her, the raging currents shoving her towards the surface in one violent sweep. Summer was completely caught off guard, as if she got hit with a bat from behind…

The rusty, grey submarine surfaced from under the water, and a metal door slid open. Ten men glided out of the sub, all riding the same hovercrafts and wearing similar clothes to those of the two Moemon hunters Summer and Ben had faced earlier. One man took command of the fleet.

"All right pinchers, let's go!" he bellowed to the formation. "There are no inhabitants on Dolce Island, so you can do whatever you want there, and no one's there to see. Go!"

And with that last word, the malignant group of Pinchers darted off of the Sub into the cobalt horizon…

On the nearly uninhabited forests of Dolce Island, a group of Moemon made up of Pichu, Sunkern, Bulbasaur, and Marill were gathered in a crowd, waiting expectantly. Now, let it be known that the air was solemn and still, and the sky seemed grey and hesitant as if it was waiting for something. The clouds were left in a silent paralysis, on the verge of tears.

But the Moemon overlooked that because they were waiting for another performance by the star of their pack, the Pichu with a ukulele. She had risen to fame with her one single that never seems to get annoying no matter how many times you hear it. She played just as well as usual that day, and at the end, the Moemon were applauding wildly. But then, the group heard a faint noise in the distant waters. They started to panic as a whole when they caught the first glimpse of the Pinchers. They all fled into the bushes, except for the Ukulele Pichu who was slow to run.

A pincher rapidly descended down to the forest floor. Luckily though, Pichu managed to duck into a bush at the very last second.

A group of three pinchers stopped in the clearing where Pichu was performing just twenty seconds ago.

"You two, split up! We need to capture all the Moemon here!" one of them exclaimed as he realized that none of the Moemon were there anymore. They quickly decided different paths, and ravaged the forest in search of Moemon.

The entire party of Moemon was taken captive within a minute or two. As they tried to flee, the poachers simply had to launch their gauntlets and the energy was enough to cripple even the most durable of Bulbasaur. But amongst the chaos, an Ursaring was awakened from her sleep, only to witness a friend of hers being taken by the purple rays of energy. Ursaring leapt out of the woods and faced one of the pinchers.

Wild with undiluted animosity for the Pincher, she charged straight at the his gauntlet, her solid build enough to crush the disgusting piece of metal. She was nearly on top of the Pincher and about to rip him apart, when he got a grip of himself and launched his capture gauntlet's rays at the sudden intruder. She sank to the ground, looking through the world in a grey haze of despair, and disappeared into the gauntlet.

"Well, we haven't found the Moemon that we wanted, but that's valuable information on its own. Let's contact the leader and have him tell us what a good job we did." mumbled a Pincher to himself.

"Z.Z. Flyer Squad, retreat!" He called. The rest of the troop followed.

The Pichu with the Ukulele was the only Moemon left out of her group. TO BE CONTINUED…

Why did Summer overreact so badly to the Lanturn? Just read the next chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

Here's Chapter 3 part one, which starts to explain why Summer overreacted so badly to the Lanturn. This is probably the only chapter where the story gets this dark. Keep reviewing (please)!

Espeon Of Shadows: You'll see in these coming chapters. I wanted to throw a wrench in the storyline.

Moemon Ranger Summer Chapter 3: Escena Retrospectiva

_They say that the hardest metal is forged from the hottest fire. _

(2 years ago in a region different from Oblivia)

"Ben, come back here now!" yelled a 13 year old Summer in a breathless tone. Her face was a ghostly white with exertion and panic, and she chased Ben down the cobblestone street. The sun was too bright that day, and it was said that when the sun was so strong that it impaired your vision, it was a deathly omen.

He was being reckless again. You would think the laws of the city would begin to make sense to him after awhile but he was stupid. Ben was the kind to charge into conflicts purely for an act of defiance. He would die. Summer knew not to kid herself. And today felt hollow, which was a bad sign. She felt a nauseating type of whiteness that fogs up your world, and she was on the verge of sickness from it.

A brief change of scene to Ben. He was charging into a fight, and asking to get jumped by a bunch of trash that would kill a child as easily as they would eat or sleep. But he didn't give a shit. If things could get better for them, they would. And doing nothing certainly didn't do anything about it. The way Ben's mind worked, there were two types of systems in the world. The kind that lets you live free, and the kind that puts you in a deadlock and consumes you. He was told that he was blind to reality, but if it mattered, he would care.

Ben charged into a small street that the sun only brushed its hands up against. He had a stun gun and a knife, while the men simply outnumbered him by about ten. Slowly, the coyotes emerged from the blackness to greet him, and the adrenaline started to kick in.

A fight is an aspect of life itself, not just a small feature which has a predictable nature to it. It's an experience that you have to be in to understand. And when you get the first rush of cold adrenaline, life seems to slow down, and then you get into it. Ben charged.

He came up to the first beast and broke his jaw in two strikes; a fake and then an uppercut. The next man was better prepared, but ended up getting electrocuted with around 400,000 volts, which seemed to be enough. Ben was on a high, thinking he could win. But the next few adversaries ganged up on him. One of them got behind him and put him in a headlock while the second and third came around with knives. But he was prepared, and sent his left foot behind the attacker while pushing him back, putting him on the ground. The only problem was that the others took their chance and pounced with their weapons. Ben started to feel nauseated, and his mental high fled the scene as he was tackled to the ground.

His body collapsed after 10 minutes of relentless abuse in that alley.

Summer found him. It wasn't often that The City was graced with a tear to soften its stone cold skin. Strange things happen. But although she cried, she had nothing to say. She just took Ben and crept through the empty streets, heading home.

Aside from systems, Ben had one more outlook on the world. He always was keenly aware of cycles and actively loathed them. That was one particular motive he had for consistently getting into fights. He and Summer were trapped in a city that they couldn't leave. It was a city that held all the trash of the regions, and the offspring of that trash, who usually grew into exactly what their ancestors had been. That cycle kept everyone trapped, like a ghetto. And the cycle of life in that city was to eat, to sleep, and then to die. Dying was a lovely option for a lot of people, but the one thing that pissed Ben off about his life was that dying was a part of it. And even though he was always about to die when he fought, fighting wasn't part of the cycle. You say that death is also part of the cycle anyway? Well when isn't the cycle with the people of The City? So Ben fought.

Luckily, he hadn't died. He awoke to his room in his apartment, giving up. Since when has anyone ever gotten out from here? Oh well. He wanted to sleep.

After that day, life was a haze for Ben. His fire was trampled by the blood soaked Hyenas (government) that wanted order. He hated the word democracy for the simple fact that someone had to be at the bottom of it. His mind went blank. Summer was the only one left.

Summer and Ben had been in The nameless City for as far as they had known. They were trapped there with no way out as far as she knew. It was gigantic, menacing and grey. You get shot for trying to leave. So what was the use anyway? It was 13 years, and they had been together for all that time. Thick and thin in The grey City, they had had each other's backs, in the monotony. Monotony wasn't too much for anyone to handle, was it?

Ben went through a change though. Suddenly, he wanted more. He wanted everything. He knew for sure that there was more out there, even though none of the people in The monotonous City knew what it was. He would sit alone and think, ignoring Summer when she tried to spark up a conversation. He would sit, and become a part of The oppressive City. And then, when he opened his eyes, they were alive with a Red passion amongst the Garbage that was thrown at them. He was going to kill them. All the Oppressive hyenas that tried to hold him down from life. Quietly, he was going to tie the noose around them and wave goodbye.

Red.

He started to fight. The scum that placed the bars around him would lose their power slowly. But he came across a problem. The wretches that kept people like him at bay were hiding. There was essentially no gain in attacking the lowlives that made their burrows in The degrading City. So now what? He was stuck in a pile of rubble with only Summer to fall back on… And what would a poor, resigned girl like Summer be able to obtain if she took up such a potentially liberating quest like this? She wasn't even supportive… But when he escaped, he would show her the beauty that they had on the outside of this life. They would have their freedom at all costs.

The only problem was that they didn't escape, and the fighting became Ben's outlet. The City was degrading him, and his Red was slowly slipping away from him. After the fight that he almost didn't get back from, Summer noticed that his Red was gone. But she wasn't sure how to feel about it. At first. After those 12 years before Ben changed, she had been as close to content as possible in their circumstance. She had never known different, and it was completely natural to live out her days as everyone always did. Both sets of their parents were long dead, so they had to make due with the meager food rations that were provided to them. But the idea that surfaced in Ben's mind was almost beyond her comprehension, and seemed unnecessary. The strangest thing was that when he looked at her, he looked with pity and sadness, like he was withholding something crucial from her.

As she thought about it, she had made up her mind at first how she felt. It made her feel so cold. Like the only wall she could lean back on had disappeared. She could have so much more. She wanted so much more. The Degrading City!

Suddenly Summer understood what Ben realized. But it was too late, cause the Red was gone, and she didn't have it.


	4. Chapter 4

I got a little sidetracked with chapter 3 but the story's gonna get back on track soon. Well, here's chapter 4! Review!

Espeon Of Shadows: I kind of got a sudden burst of inspiration and wanted to write it down before I forgot.

Moemon Ranger: Summer Chapter 4:

Accion

One day, there was a shift in The oppressive City. From the unchanging grey, there was a flash of opportunity. Summer saw it for certain. She noticed that it was her chance to make a change.

In The City, the only time people went in or out of the walls was when either food was being imported in, or when the Rangers came in. They came very rarely, and when they did, the purpose was rarely known. They always kept the fact that they had visited a secret, never letting a citizen of the city lay eyes on them. But the only flaw in their strategy was that the gates had to be opened for anything to get in.

Summer and Ben happened to live near one of the gates and often did see when food was being shipped in, but there had never been a ranger there before as far as they had known. So when the gates momentarily opened up, it was no big surprise.

It was a bleak day with the only light in the city being filtered through an opening in the gates. There had been a vehicle coming through the doors, but it didn't look like it was a food storage vehicle. It was so small that only about 4 or 5 people could fit in it. When summer saw it, she immediately started wondering what it was. Nothing like that had ever gone into the city before, so she wanted to get a closer look. Within about 30 minutes, she had traveled over to the steel, grey gates, as close as she could get to the unloading platform.

Near the platform was a huge garage where vehicles were stored. Some security officers were stationed there, ordering people around and keeping everything organized. The interior of the garage was a 5 story grid of hundreds of metal storage cells, linked together by a seemingly precarious balance of metal rods and platforms. In about half of the cells, vehicles (mostly food carriers) were scattered randomly in cells. At the top of the garage was an office where the security men were housed.

As the small truck entered the garage, it stayed in one of the 15 bays that were used for security officer's cars. They needed their cars so close to the gates so that they could leave the city when their shifts were over. So at first, Summer had thought that the truck was simply an officer's truck. But as she looked closer, she saw that the logo on the truck wasn't that of a security officer at all. It said Fiore Rangers Inc., a phrase she wasn't at all familiar with.

Summer knew that something was up. This was not part of the cycle that the city lived by. So she had to get a better look at this development. That was what Ben would have wanted before, anyway. But, how she was going to get there, she had no idea. The garage was heavily guarded, and Ben was another problem. He probably wouldn't go in the first place. But if he did go, Summer speculated that it may awaken what she saw in his eyes so long ago.

It was 12:15 and she was back at the alley where she and Ben lived. Ben was slumped up against a wall, eating a piece of some unidentifiable kind of meat. Due to the fact that it was unidentifiable, Summer assumed it was Chinese. She shoved Ben lightly and whispered, "Hey, Ben, there was a truck that read Fiore Rangers Inc., and it just stopped into the garage where all the officers are. Do you know what that means?" Ben looked up at her and then got back to eating. Summer was getting a little frustrated with herself. She had to trick him some way or another, so that he could at least look at the vehicle.

With a little bit of thought, Summer reached down and ripped the piece of meat out of Ben's hand.

"If you don't go with me, I'm going to fucking step on your balls when you're sleeping and go out of my way to make life a living hell for you for the rest of your life after I'm done. So I'd appreciate it if you would come with me today." Since Ben was in fact a man, the thought legitimately scared him. Then again, women already legitimately scared him. So what was the hurt of going with her this one time?

Ben and Summer traveled over near the loading dock by 12:47. The garage was guarded with a huge fence; the openings of the fence guarded by 48 armed soldiers. Of course Summer hadn't thought of that when plotting to sneak over to the Fiore Rangers truck. Ben had nothing to say because he was kind of glad he could go back home without incident. He already knew that Summer had a tendency to run into situations without thinking them through, overlooking crucial details until they hit her in the face.

He started to walk back, but as he got about 2 minutes down the road, he realized that Summer wasn't with him. He froze, and looked back at where the nearest security guard was. There was no one there. Ben started to sprint home hoping Summer was already ahead of him. But as he turned, he landed face first into a camouflage suit. Adrenaline shot through him, and he tried to maneuver around the guard. But the guard moved with him and threw him to the ground, straddling him. And as Ben started his retaliation, his opponent just started to laugh heartily. As he looked up into the figure's face, he saw Summer grinning down at him. He gave her the finger and they strode leisurely through the opening in the fence, Ben wondering whatever happened to the guard that used to be there.

They stepped into the garage, trying to find an elevator or at least a set of steps to get to the office where the truck parked. The ceiling was low to the ground, and somewhere around 70 to 100 food ration vehicles littered the outside of the first floor, backed into the bays, waiting for platforms to be attached to the bays, for the vehicles to be lowered down to the ground. They inconspicuously looked through the area, and luckily it was almost devoid of people. But no dice. They couldn't find a single staircase or anything that could be used to get to the next floor.

All of a sudden, a red light flashed in front of a bay and a siren went off. "DANGER! ALL OBSTRUCTIONS ARE TO BE REMOVED FROM THE IMMEDIATE AREA OF BAY 27! DANGER! ALL OBSTRUCTIONS OARE TO BE REMOVED FROM THE IMMEDIA-", droned on and on throughout floor 1. Summer froze, thinking that some sensor noticed that she and Ben were in the unloading area. But instead of security coming out to clear out this anonymous obstruction, the vehicle in bay 27 roared to life, and the driver of it peered out of the truck through his rear view window, slowly backing out of the bay about 12 feet.

He noticed the two intruders, but since Summer was in uniform, he took her as a security that was overlooking the unloading of his food truck.

"Get the hell away from here, I'll run you over!" he yelled over the hum of the motor and the siren. Summer snapped out of her daze and backed off, her thoughts blazing rapid-fire. She realized that the reason there were no methods to elevate anyone to the next floor was because the trucks only needed extra platforms attached to their bays to get out, and only needed the loading docks to get in. She needed to get into this truck somehow, if she wanted to even have a chance of getting to the next floor.

She walked up beside the truck, grabbing Ben's hand so he didn't just stand where he was. "Hey, Mister, I need a ride down to the ground, so I can go pick up my ID. I dropped it down there, and I can't get out because the machine won't let me out without swiping my ID card." she said coolly. The trucker gave her a funny look, mostly because there aren't any women in security, but figured she was being sincere enough, so he said, "Well alright, sweetie, but I might not be exiting the same way you came in. Maybe just call the maintenance and they'll-"

Summer cut him off and grabbed his shirt, tightly. "I would like you to kindly let me have a ride in your truck sir. If not, I'll have to take whatever steps are necessary to get into that truck, and I don't guarantee you'll still be in it or still be conscious when I do get into the truck." she said with a smile. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

The pair got into the truck without conflict. Just as they took a seat in the truck, the unloading platform rose up and latched itself onto the bay. It was a brittle-looking piece of metal, that had various joints attaching its numerous beams together so that it could be maneuvered somewhat easily. When the truck moved forward to park onto the unloading platform, a magnet underneath the platform held it in place so that while it was lowered down, it couldn't fall off. Summer and Ben were in the bed of the truck, sitting over a tarp that covered all the food that was being sent to the factories to be packaged further.

Summer was starting to panic. At this rate, she an Ben were going to get transported straight back to where they were in the first place, and even if they did find a way up, there was a high chance that an operator of one of the platforms would see them as they went down to ground level. It was 1:09. She briefly examined the area. There were somewhere around 20 platforms sending food storage trucks to the ground on their side of the garage. Each platform was handled by a worker, and each person controlling one had to keep a constant eye out to avoid a collision with another platform. Summer realized that in order to get to a higher floor, she had to somehow jump to a platform that was in the process of latching onto a bay on an upper floor. She had about one minute to do this.

Summer climbed down to the driver's side of the truck and knocked on the window. The driver looked over at her while smoking a cigarette and rolled down the window slowly. This was the first time she got a good look at him. He was about middle aged, and should have been white if not for the obviously long time he spent not taking showers. He had a brown goatee and wore a brown and green baseball cap, along with a striped, red shirt, and filthy jeans.

"Let me in here now," Summer growled at him. She was extremely frustrated with the situation and wasn't going to react kindly to the trucker if he gave her any hassle. Luckily, he didn't and quickly opened the door. She jumped in and with no regard for the man's comfort, searched him and the interior of the truck for the lighter he used for lighting the cigarette. After she found it, she picked up a really old looking cigarette from under the dash board. Dashing out of the truck, Summer lit up the old cigarette, and it violently burst into flames as the small fire caressed it. She threw it on the ground, the flame catching on the rusty metal of the platform, and in seconds the whole platform was set ablaze. The operator quickly became aware that something was up. It was 1:10.

Over a loud speaker, the operator's tenor voice called, "Emergency! Platform on fire! Clear the way for food storage truck 27 to move back to bay!" The platform sighed loudly and started to repeat its ascent up to the bay to get a fire extinguisher. This was the chance Summer needed to get to the top of the Garage. The system was messed up, and the traffic on their side of the Garage was blocking the way to Bay 27. The platforms were moving too slowly to avoid a collision, but 27's operator was in panic mode and decided not to care. As they were nearing the bay, Summer noticed that Platform 158 was too close to them. There was about to be a collision, so she could definitely jump on there and get higher up with Ben. The higher numbers meant the platform was closer to the top, so this one was at least a level 3. They had seconds before the fire would reach the truck and would put them all in danger.


	5. Chapter 5

Here's chapter 5! There's an incoming lemon, so you can look forward to that!

Espeon of Shadows: Thanks!

The Black Okami: Any criticism is always well appreciated. So thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

Mobiusfan: Yeah, she's a little older haha

Moemon Ranger: Summer Chapter 5:

Accion (pt. 2)

As the platform creaked and the edges started to fall off, engulfed in fire, Summer grabbed Ben and braced herself for a potentially fatal jump to another platform.

"Ben, we're going to jump," she yelled over the earsplitting commotion of 20- some operators all yelling through loudspeakers at each other, ineffectively attempting at some order. She hurried towards the edge of the one section of the platform that was intact. Aimlessly eyeing up the opportunities of escape, she noticed that the metal arm guiding Platform 158 was about to collide with them. Summer let go of Ben and leapt over the gap, landing successfully on the arm. She caught a step-like bar on the arm that could support her, and waited for Ben. But he was gone.

The fire enveloped the edge Ben was supposed to use, and it crumbled off. As it happened, Platform 158 got too close and scraped across the (now) burning metal that he was standing on. As the deafening sound echoed across the crowded loading area, the panic level rose, sending the voices of the operators into a high-pitched frenzy, while operator 27 grew silent. Alarms were blazing, and Summer was getting sick knowing that Ben was still in there.

Inside the car, Ben was pushing the heavyset body of the driver out of his seat. He had fainted from the excessive amounts of smoke in the enclosed area of the truck. After pushing him out of the window (poor guy), Ben quickly turned on the vehicle, realizing that he had to hold his breath the whole time. He violently stomped on the gas pedal in an attempt to get the truck to collide with platform 158, his only possible method to meet back up with Summer without catching himself on fire. The top of the truck and the interior were the only surfaces that weren't already blazing, so if he got on top of the vehicle, he had a pathway. The only problem was that the truck wouldn't move due to the magnet. Ben shoved his foot down on the gas pedal, and found that it was already on fire. It fell off under his weight. All of a sudden, the wheels were spinning full speed with the rubber burning against the brittle steel that was holding up the food storage vehicle. He broke the front glass and climbed out to the top of the burning mess. It was 1:13.

He looked down and witnessed all of the horrendous chaos and noise pollution that was caused within 3 minutes. He looked over at Summer on 158 and cracked a mischievous grin. All of a sudden a stupid, giddy feeling welled up inside him. He might live through this. Who knows.

The operator of 27 was getting sick. He had no idea how this kind of thing happened with such an orderly system like this. Sure, the idea seemed precarious but never once had something like this happened. All of these people were highly trained to make sure that there were no mishaps during loading processes. And all of a sudden, the driver of his platform (dressed like a guard?) stepped out of the truck for a smoke and caught Number 27 on fire? He was so stunned by the development that he slightly disobeyed orders and tried to move the platform back up to the bay. Damn, and he was new at this too. He was definitely going to get fired, and this new Eye-For-An-Eye policy wasn't going to be the most pleasant thing for him. His nausea got worse, and he had to call in a sub.

"Operator 35, I need a sub, dammit, come quick." he muttered as he crept out of his seat, getting dirty looks from his fellow operators. They were in one of the upper levels of the garage, and could easily get a replacement from one of his many superiors that had once been a bay operator, but he was friends with Operator 38. It would be a minute or so (too long) for 38 to get to the 27 cubicle. They were in separate rooms after all. He tried to walk briskly through the large yellow, low ceiling room, avoiding eye contact (to a restroom), but he was stopped at his desk by Operator 22, a large muscular guy with a sadistic personality and a habit of bullying.

22 shoved the smaller operator against the glass near the platforms face first so that he was viewing the chaos below. Platform 158 crashed into 27 with a muted scraping sound, and the fire spread out. "Do you get your kicks from watching people suffer because of your incompetence? Do you?" 22 snarled into 27's ear.

"You're really one to talk," 27 choked out as he tried to inch his face away from the window, riding on a wave of fresh adrenaline. 22 turned him around, punched him in the gut, and dropped him on the slanted table, which controlled the platform. The operator landed on the button that controlled platform 27's magnet.

Back on Platform 27, the magnet shut off, and the truck slammed into Platform 158. Platform 158 was about halfway between ground level and its bay, some 150 feet above the surface. Ben climbed up the arm of Platform 158, Summer helping him to climb up onto the sheet of metal where truck 158 was sitting. Luckily, the operators took Summer and Ben as the drivers of 27, so they were quickly forgotten as 158 coasted up to the 3rd floor.


End file.
